I woke up at 5:15 am. Shit! We had planned to meet at 5:30 am at Hebbal before riding to Nandi Hills. Spending a good saturday evening with friends might have made me press the snooze button a few times more than I normally do. I gave myself 10 seconds to decide between the bed and the bike. Me writing this post means the bike won, and I was off at 5:30 am from home, reached Hebbal at 5:45 and thankfully, they were still there. Twenty two Royal Enfields!! Wow!!
We started our engines, and started cruising towards Nandi Hills. I looked down, and saw the tarmac beneath as we left the city. Cool wind was blowing against my face and I was “in the” scene. This is the feeling you can only get on a motorcycle, and I felt glad to be on one of the best motorcycles available in our country. Every sight turned towards us as 22 thumping bullets made their way uphill.
Atop the hills, it was a little cold. After breakfast and some chit-chat, we decided to head back. You can’t keep a rider away from his machine for long! Stopped… Read the rest
Murphy’s Law proved itself to me on two consecutive weekends. First, the plan to ride to Pondicherry with some friends on the Christmas 2009 weekend was cancelled at the last moment. Then, a ride to Lepakshi on 3 Jan with the Royal Indians club started off badly with the clutch cable giving up as soon as I started. So the ride to Bandipur on 9th-10th Jan was awaited with much enthusiasm.
We were 4 of us on two bikes, my Thunderbird TwinSpark and one Yamaha. Bandipur is a widlife sanctuary about 220 km from Bangalore. Just after you cross Bandipur, you get into Mudumalai Tiger Reserve which falls in Tamil Nadu. We got two tents for the one night stay near Gudalur, around 15km after Mudumulai Reserve on the way to Ooty.
We planned to start at 6am on 9th January, and finally started at 6:30am. We took the Mysore Road out of Bangalore and after the initial city traffic, we were cruising at around 80km/hr. We took a break at 8:10 am for tea after around 60km. We left again at 8:25am towards Mysore. The highway towards Mysore (state highway 17) was excellent and we reached Mysore… Read the rest
